Tulane scores 16 in final 4 minutes to stun USC
ARLINGTON, Texas — Tulane tight end Alex Bauman caught a 6-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Michael Pratt with nine seconds left to cap a frantic finish by the 16th-ranked Green Wave in a 46-45 win over Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams and No. 10 Southern California in the Cotton Bowl on Monday.
Bauman’s contested catch, with linebacker Eric Gentry draped over him, was initially ruled an incompletion, but a replay review showed the ball never touched the ground as the players rolled over in the end zone. The Green Wave scored 16 points in the final 4 minutes, 7 seconds, with the game-winning touchdown coming after they got the ball back following a safety.
Over the past five seasons, teams were 1-1,692 when trailing by 15 or more points with five minutes or less remaining in the fourth quarter, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. The lone win came in 2020 with Texas coming back against Texas Tech.
“I might have had a heart attack,” Tulane coach Willie Fritz said moments after the game ended.
Williams was 37-for-52 passing for 462 yards and a Cotton Bowl-record five touchdowns, exactly one month after the quarterback suffered a hamstring injury in USC’s loss to Utah in the Pac-12 championship game that kept the Trojans from making the four-team College Football Playoff.
Tyjae Spears ran for 205 yards, and his career-best fourth touchdown started the final scoring surge for the American Athletic Conference champion Green Wave (12-2), who completed an FBS-record nine-win turnaround after going 2-10 last season. They were in the New Year’s Six game as the highest-ranked Group of 5 team.
The Green Wave played in their most significant bowl since the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day in 1940, when they were still in the Southeastern Conference, and it was their biggest bowl win since the 1935 Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, where their campus is located.
After Spears’ 4-yard TD with 4:07 left, the Green Wave opted to kick deep instead of trying an onside kick. Mario Williams signaled for a fair catch but fumbled the ball out of bounds at the 1. Two plays later, defensive tackle Patrick Jenkins met running back Austin Jones in the end zone and smothered him for a safety.
“We were debating whether or not to onside kick,” said Fritz, the seventh-year Tulane coach. “The book kind of told us it was slightly towards kicking it deep. Obviously, it was great that we got it on the 1 and got the safety.”
Pratt completed only 8 of 17 passes for 234 yards but had two 24-yard completions on that final drive after the safety. The first one to Bauman converted a fourth-and-10, and Duece Watts held on despite a crushing hit from a defender that left both of them on the ground after a 24-yard gain to the 6 with 18 seconds left.
After Williams followed coach Lincoln Riley from Oklahoma, the Trojans (11-3) matched the biggest turnaround in school history despite the coach’s first loss in six games at AT&T Stadium. It was a seven-win improvement over last season’s 4-8 record before Riley and Williams arrived on the West Coast.
The Trojans, who never trailed until that final touchdown, jumped ahead 14-0 when Williams threw TD passes on each of their first two possessions. His 9-yard TD to Michael Jackson III capped the game-opening drive that took nine minutes, the longest by time for USC this season, and Terrell Bynum‘s 3-yard catch capped a 95-yard drive early in the second quarter.
Tulane tied the game at 14 on Pratt’s touchdown pass to Jha’Quan Jackson, an 87-yard catch-and-run. But USC scored twice in the final 2:21 of the first half on Raleek Brown‘s 39-yard run and Brenden Rice‘s 4-yard catch with 12 seconds left.
Rice, the son of Pro Football Hall of Fame receiver Jerry Rice, had career bests with six catches for 174 yards and two touchdowns. Tahj Washington had five catches for 109 yards.
Williams injured a hamstring on a 59-yard run early in the Pac-12 championship game loss to Utah on Dec. 2, but he still threw for 363 yards and three TDs while finishing that game.
USC’s only prior losses this season were to the Utes, who also beat them with a game-winning 2-point conversion at home in mid-October.
The Cotton Bowl was Williams’ third game this season with five TD passes. His only interception set up Tulane’s long game-tying TD. On a scramble with open field in front of him, Williams instead threw off his back foot and was picked off by Jarius Monroe.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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Greg Wyshynski
The sea of white in Winnipeg chanted “M-V-P!” in unison during the Jets‘ Game 2 win over the Dallas Stars on Friday night. Goalie Connor Hellebuyck heard and appreciated those chants.
“It means a whole lot. I love this crowd. I love this city,” said Hellebuyck, who stopped 21 shots in Winnipeg’s 4-0 victory that evened their Western Conference semifinal series at 1-1.
It was Hellebuyck’s first playoff shutout since a 1-0 blanking of the Edmonton Oilers in the first round in 2021, and the fourth postseason shutout of his career. Hellebuyck led the NHL with eight shutouts in the regular season, which helped him become a finalist for the Hart Trophy as league MVP and for the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top goaltender, an award he won last season and in 2020.
Prior to Friday night, he had not been that same goaltender in the postseason.
Considered by many the best netminder in the world, Hellebuyck was the worst goalie statistically in the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs entering Game 2. He was 4-4 with an .836 save percentage, the lowest for any goalie with at least three postseason games played. He was last in the playoffs through eight games with a minus-9.68 goals saved above expected. He had a 3.75 goals-against average as well, after sporting a GAA of 2.00 and a .925 save percentage in the regular season.
Yet the Jets’ faith in their goaltender never wavered.
“We rely on him. Sometimes too much. But he was incredible tonight,” said defenseman Josh Morrissey, who missed Game 1 against Dallas and most of Game 7 against St. Louis with an injury. “That’s what he does every night for us. He’s an incredible goaltender. He makes very difficult saves look very easy, routinely and often. You could tell he was feeling it tonight. When he’s feeling it like that, it gives the players in front of him a lot of confidence.”
Jets coach Scott Arniel said his goalie was “fantastic” in Game 2.
“Sometimes we take him for granted because he makes the hard look easy, but he had some acrobatic ones tonight,” Arniel said.
That was especially true in the second period. The Jets built a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals by Gabriel Vilardi and Nik Ehlers, whose shot deflected off the skate of Dallas defenseman Esa Lindell. Hellebuyck made nine saves in that opening frame.
“We pushed hard in the second to try and climb back in the game,” said Dallas coach Peter DeBoer. “Hellebuyck made some saves. We get one there, maybe the momentum shifts. But that was the game. He was a good. He was really good. We can always make it more difficult on him, but he was really good.”
After the game, Hellebuyck told Sportsnet that he believed he was back on his game after the shutout win.
“Now it’s locked in. We broke it down to build it back together,” he said. “I like where it’s at. I like where the team’s playing. I’m really excited for the series. It’s been fun.”
Whether the fun continues on the road for Sunday’s Game 3 is anyone’s guess.
Hellebuyck was a disaster in the Jets’ three games in St. Louis, giving up 16 goals on 66 shots (.758 save percentage) and getting pulled in each loss. In his past eight postseason road games, Hellebuyck is 1-7 with a .838 save percentage and a 5.19 goals-against average.
“We’re still playing hockey, and it’s May. That’s fun. It’s the best time of year, because you’ve dialed your game in all year long,” Hellebuyck said.
The Jets said they need to be better in front of their goalie on the road.
“It’s going to be a tough building. They grabbed home ice from us by winning Game 1,” Arniel said. “It’s [about] lessons learned. Take some of the things from that series. We know we have to do a lot of what we did tonight.”
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